


A Little Something

by Paeonia



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gift Fic, I dislike the term "fluff" but this might qualify, Nobody is Dead, Shopping, yet another tea fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-27 02:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15014384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paeonia/pseuds/Paeonia
Summary: Post Season 2. Peggy gets sidetracked.Only 2 chapters planned for now, but I might add something down the line if there's interest & inspiration





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [indigowild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigowild/gifts), [Annie+MacDonald](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Annie%2BMacDonald).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 1 is a slightly revised version of a little treat originally posted elsewhere for @indigowild.

They’ve just left the LAPD Central Bureau Headquarters. Daniel’s driving, and Peggy’s looking out the window. Her eyes are narrowed. Daniel knows her mind’s running like sixty, he can almost hear her brain humming, and his heart skips a beat. She’s so smart, he loves how smart she is, and when that brain of hers gets focused it’s like a magnifying glass focusing a beam of sunlight.

Of course, if you blunder your way into a focused beam of sunlight at the wrong time, the result can be painful. So Daniel doesn’t say anything. He’s pretty sure he knows what she’s thinking about anyway.

And he’s partly right: Peggy’s thinking about the same thing he is, about how this visit they’ve just paid to the LAPD has been almost a complete waste of time. 

But Peggy’s got a few other things on her mind, and her thoughts are so divided that if Daniel did ask she honestly wouldn’t be able to tell him what she’s thinking about. A big part of her is indeed fuming at the LAPD, but there’s also a little part of her that’s proud of herself for keeping her composure and not informing them that their incompetence could be used in a textbook as an exemplar of how not to work with the SSR (even though it’s perfectly true.) Another part of her is feeling warm and proud at the memory of Chief Daniel keeping  _his_ composure, and getting heaps of information out of the people at the Bureau without their ever realizing what he was doing. How calm he is, and how clever! 

And part of her is marveling — again — at how everything’s changed. She’s in  _Los Angeles_. Still! And she and Daniel are working together again, and they don't have to keep their work a secret from the rest of the SSR, and they're going to _find_ whoever went after Jack, because they're a wonderful team, and her heart starts to get that lovely floaty feeling again — 

She looks over to Daniel. “Wait. Why are we stopping?”

He finishes pulling into the parking spot. “Because of whatever it was you spotted just now.”

She looks out the window again. “I don’t remember seeing anything….” Even she as says it, she feels something drawing her back the way they came.

"Yeah?" Daniel turns off the car and turns to get his crutch. "Because it sure caught your attention, whatever it was."

"But I didn't —"

"Are you kidding? For a second there you looked like you were about to climb out the back window. Let's go check it out."

She gets out of the car and waits as Daniel feeds the parking meter. Then she slowly walks back up the block, willing herself to notice again whatever it was that first caught her eye. Nothing seems out of place…

She approaches a shop window display.  _Here_ , says her instinct. She stops, looks at the window, and sighs a little in recognition. Daniel catches up, looks at the window, and looks back to her in surprise.

It’s a display of new plates and dishes, from one of the ceramics companies here in town. A placard in the window announces that they’re back to producing civilian goods:  _At last! Set the table you’ve been dreaming of… New styles! New colors!…_

The display includes a little table set with four cups and saucers, a sugar bowl, a cream pitcher, and a plump teapot. "Never knew you were so interested in dishes," Daniel teases.

“I didn’t _ask_ to stop,” replies Peggy. Her eyes are still fixed on the table setting. “Though… at the moment, the only place in Los Angeles I know I can get a proper cup of tea is Howard’s, when Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis are in residence. But if I’m to stay on….”

“You don’t want to have to rely on Jarvis for a cup of tea? Makes sense. But I don’t see what the problem is; we keep tea on hand at the office,” Daniel says with a shrug. “Didn’t I show you where it is?”

“Rose showed me,” says Peggy. “But — a  _proper_ cup of tea.”  _Darling_ , she almost says _._ Is that what she wants to say? Is Daniel a  _darling?_  The idea pleases her, and she rolls it around in her mind. 

Daniel feigns innocence. “It’s perfectly good tea. We order it from the same place as the Coast Guard commissary.”

Peggy gives him the look of fond exasperation he’d been hoping for. “ _Daniel_."

"Do you want to go in? We've got some time before I need to be back at the office."

Peggy looks at the display. "Yes, let's," she says. "We should talk. About tea.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Annie+MacDonald, for her birthday.

Daniel only put fifteen minutes on the parking meter, so Peggy walks back to buy them some more time; he’s complained before about tangling with the city’s Parking Enforcement. As she opens her change purse, she calculates: To find this teapot in the department store, look at it, make a decision, pay for it, and return to the car.... thirty minutes will do, if they hurry, and  _ if _ everything goes perfectly, and when does that ever happen? Better to be prepared. She adds an hour and fifteen minutes to the meter and goes to rejoin Daniel, and together they go into the store.

It's a good-sized department store, and what a treat: it's air-conditioned. Daniel goes to find a phone booth to call the office; meanwhile, Peggy finds the store directory. "Third floor," she reports when he rejoins her.

He looks past the glinting glass cases of cosmetics and fragrances to the great bank of escalators in the middle of the sales floor. "I'll need to go the long way. This —" he indicates his crutch — "doesn’t work too well with escalators."

She looks at the directory again and finds the lift, and they set off. Peggy keeps pace with Daniel; their walk is brisk and determined, as if they're walking to a crime scene instead of the Stationery department.

They pass two displays of greeting cards and find the lift. Daniel presses the button. "So we're having a talk about tea?"

"A  _ proper _ cup of tea."  _ Darling _ , she almost says again. She feels herself smiling — she’s talking about tea with Daniel because she is staying in Los Angeles with Daniel — just a couple of weeks ago it seemed impossible — she looks over at Daniel again, and he’s smiling at her, and the lift opens. They wait for the people to exit and, in turn, enter the car. The doors close behind them. Peggy steps close to Daniel and lifts her face. They kiss as the car begins to climb. 

A chime announces the second floor. They ignore it. Peggy doesn’t come up for air until the car starts to slow, and as the car stops, Daniel steals one more kiss. She has just enough time to steal one back before the doors open.

She squeezes Daniel’s hand and steps out of the lift. The first thing she sees is a menu on a stand: the store’s restaurant is on this floor. 

As Daniel catches up with her, she’s struck by how tired he looks. It’s no wonder: they went straight from the Isodyne case to the business with Jack; the L.A. office is even more understaffed than it was when Daniel first called New York for help, and on top of that he’s helping run the New York office. They’ve been driving all over the city — airport, crime lab, Jack’s hotel, Vernon Masters’s hotel; Isodyne; Whitney Frost’s home and the ruins of her waste management facility turned lab; the Arena Club; Howard’s place — and today’s been a long, hot, frustrating day. Out of the corner of her eye she sees a waitress carrying an extravagant something involving ice cream in a parfait glass. She makes a decision. A few minutes later, she’s sitting across from Daniel in the restaurant.  

Daniel looks around as he picks up his menu. “This doesn’t look like part of the mission.”

“What mission?”

“This mission.” He leans forward and drops his voice. “Or is this tea business just a cover story?”

“No, but we should go in prepared, don’t you think? I could do with something cold.”

“Iced tea, then?”

“Certainly  _ not _ .” The waitress comes; Peggy orders a strawberry cream soda, and Daniel a wild cherry phosphate. When she leaves, Daniel smiles and slides his right hand, palm up, across the table. Peggy takes it and squeezes his fingers as she returns his smile.

They don’t move or say another word until the waitress jolts them back to the world of the mundane and sets their orders in front of them. When she leaves, Peggy lets go of Daniel’s hand and takes the first sip of her drink.

It’s just the thing. The fizzy drink tickles her throat as she swallows; she hadn’t realized how thirsty she was.

They don’t say much, but soon they’re holding hands again. 

When they’re finished, Peggy’s next stop is the ladies’ lounge. She freshens up, powders her nose, touches up her lipstick, and emerges feeling ready to take on the entire LAPD  _ and  _ the Housewares Department. 

She surveys the floor as she waits for Daniel. She’s not looking for the entry and exit points, or noted the counters that could serve as barriers in a pinch; she’d automatically sketched all that out in her head, just out of habit, the moment she stepped out of the lift. Now she’s looking at the actual merchandise. After years of war and rationing and destruction, it’s still a little startling to see the abundance. No more bare counters; everywhere there are  _ things  _ — dishes, bowls, toasters, pots and pans, stacks of towels, and signs promising that even more goods will be coming in soon. No dreary for-the-duration stopgaps; everything looks modern and cheerful. And there are so many choices: glass bowls, ceramic bowls, metal bowls; dishes with yellow flowers or red polka-dots; towels printed with palm trees or roosters or cherries. 

And all these choices… are here for her. Has she ever purchased something like this for herself before? For years and years she’s used whatever’s around: a mess kit, Colleen’s old glass plates from the five-and-ten, the plain tableware at the L&L and the Griffith, the elegant china at Howard’s…. All of it perfectly serviceable, and all of it chosen by somebody else long before she’d arrived. Today she’s choosing something for herself. She thinks of birds and nests, and quickly turns her thoughts elsewhere. And she does not let herself think about why she never thought of getting a teapot for the office back in New York.

Daniel arrives, and as Peggy explains that a  _ proper  _ cup of tea is made in a teapot and not in a cup, and does not involve bags, they make their way to the Tabletop Shoppe and scout around until they find the tableware from the window display. There are dinner plates and salad plates and luncheon plates and soup bowls, sauce boats and platters and salt and pepper shakers, pitchers and butter dishes and serving dishes, all in an array of colors.

A saleswoman joins them. She shows Peggy the teapots, and the cups and the saucers, and the sugar bowl and milk pitcher, and how the different colors can be mixed and matched, maybe with a platter for sandwiches — luncheon plates — these napkins pick up so many of the colors, wouldn’t that look nice for a tea with the girls?....

“That does look nice, but I’m just looking at teapots today.”

The saleswoman doesn’t miss a beat. “So we have the regular teapot in these colors, and around here is the little one...”

“A little one?” Peggy comes to look.

The little teapot holds around four cups, much more suitable for the office, and comes in four colors. At first Peggy is drawn to a soft green color, but in the end she chooses the turquoise. She adds a tea strainer that comes with its own little holder, and explains its use to Daniel as the saleswoman rings her up and wraps her purchases.

“...and Jerry’s mended the electric kettle, so I think my kit’s complete.”

“Don’t you need tea?” asks Daniel.

Before Peggy can tell him that she was going to ask the Jarvises for advice, the saleswoman speaks up. “Gourmet Food.” As Daniel turns to look, Peggy notices a look of understanding dawning over the saleswoman’s face. 

“Thank you,” Peggy says crisply.

“Thank  _ you _ ,” says the saleswoman. “Now, if you ever want to add to your collection, there’s demi cups and saucers and a sugar and creamer that coordinate with your teapot. If we don’t have it in stock, we can order it for you.” She slides a brochure across the counter. “And if we can be of assistance in the future, to you or perhaps one of your friends, please let us know. We’d be honored to serve you. We offer a number of services and can schedule an uninterrupted consultation.”

When Peggy sees the brochure, she quickly glances at Daniel. To her relief, he’s wandered off a little. She turns back to the saleswoman, shakes her head in a small “no”, and pushes the brochure back. The saleswoman looks surprised, but then nods as if she understands something. 

“Enjoy your teapot!” the saleswoman says cheerfully. “And please come again!”

Peggy takes her bag and goes to join Daniel. “Back to the office, then?”

“Maybe. How much time’s left on the meter?”

She checks her watch. “Thirty minutes?”

“One more stop, then.” Together, they set off for Gourmet Foods.

 

Back in the car, Peggy takes the box of tea and the package of biscuits out of the shopping bag as Daniel puts his crutch away.  He looks over and frowns.

“Wish they’d had more of a selection,” he says again. “You’d think a place that had canned snails would have more kinds of tea.”

Peggy is reading the label of the tea. “Oh, that’s all right, darling. This looks promising. I’m looking forward to trying it,” she truthfully replies. “We can have some this afternoon with the biscuits.”

Daniel seems to like the idea. “At least we had one lead today that actually got us somewhere.” He looks over his shoulder and pulls the car out of the parking spot. 

“Maybe Rose will have heard something from her contact at the LAPD,” she says. 

Only part of Peggy's mind is thinking about Rose and the LAPD; the rest is thinking about what Daniel’s just said, about how the lead “actually got us somewhere.”  _ Us _ .  She feels herself smile.

She suddenly thinks of that Bridal Registry Services pamphlet the saleswoman had tried to give her.  _ Ridiculous. _ She turns her mind back to the case. 

But part of her mind is still thinking about what’s to come that afternoon: fresh biscuits, the electric kettle, five teaspoons of tea, a turquoise teapot of her very own.

And a very small part of her mind is being permitted to entertain a delicate little hint of an idea:

_ Us. _

 

_ Ours. _

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A phosphate is made of flavored syrup, carbonated water, and a dash of acid phosphate, which adds a tart note to the drink and brings out its other flavors.


End file.
